


i wouldn't fall for someone i thought couldn't misbehave

by divorceadvocate



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Carte Blanche Shenanigans, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Other, that should be a tag i think, theres like one paragraph where things get a lil Hot And Heavy but it goes literally nowhere, this is just tooth rotting fluff, two idiots make pancakes; the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23883625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divorceadvocate/pseuds/divorceadvocate
Summary: It hurt how much Juno loved Nureyev. The feeling of it overwhelmed him so much sometimes to the point where he’d feel like he’d combust if he didn’t scream from the rooftops about how much he adored this man, atrocious cooking abilities and all. But he didn’t want to wake up Buddy, so instead he just said, “How do you feel about blueberry pancakes?”
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 43
Kudos: 210





	i wouldn't fall for someone i thought couldn't misbehave

Juno woke up to an empty spot beside him in bed. A curious, sleepy hand reached out to investigate, and found the spot was still warm. Using his razor sharp detective skills, Juno puzzled out that someone had been laying in that spot just moments before, and the shifting of the mattress when they left the bed had woken him up. 

“Yeah, I still got it,” he mumbled into the pillow.

A hand that was just as warm as the empty spot beside Juno caressed his forehead. Long, slender fingers ran gently through his curls, and Juno hummed at the feeling, rolling over so that his face wasn’t pressed into the pillow. 

“I apologize, love, did I wake you?” The voice that spoke to Juno was smooth and low, and he instinctively turned his body towards it, wanting more. 

“Nah,” he lied, opening his eyes and blinking a few times to clear his vision. And there was Peter Nureyev, standing over him in nothing but his silk robe that he had specially made for him on some asteroid past Jupiter. He wasn’t wearing any makeup, and his hair flopped in his face as he crouched down to press a feather-light kiss to Juno’s forehead. Juno saw Nureyev like this nearly every morning now. But somehow, it never ceased to amaze him that he was the one who Nureyev trusted with this side of him; this naked, raw, and vulnerable version of Peter Nureyev. 

“Mmhm. Go back to sleep, Juno,” Nureyev mumbled against the creases on his forehead. Juno grumbled a faint protest, scooting all the way over to the edge of the bed and wrapping his arms around Nureyev’s legs in something that kind of resembled a hug but was more like a bear trap. 

“You’re too late, I’m already wide awake,” he said, his words muffled by the silky fabric of Nureyev’s robe. He felt more than heard the chuckle from above him. “What time is it, anyway?”

“It’s, ah, 4:37 AM.”

Juno tore himself from Nureyev, squinting up at him. “4 AM? What the fuck are you doing up?” Nureyev sighed and sat down next to Juno on the bed. Juno wasn’t ashamed to admit that he almost immediately gravitated towards him, laying his head on his shoulder and letting his arms drape around him. And he wasn’t ashamed to admit that his heart skipped a few beats when Nureyev rested his chin on top of his head and wrapped an arm around Juno like it was as easy as breathing.

“I was restless. I woke up a few hours ago, but I couldn’t fall back asleep. I thought that perhaps I could take a walk around the ship, clear my head. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” Juno shrugged.

“What’s done is done,” he said, nuzzling into Nureyev’s neck. “Do you want me to make breakfast?”

And that’s how they ended up here, standing in the kitchen of the Carte Blanche, both of them absolutely covered in flour and giggling like teenagers. There was a giant handprint on the butt of Juno’s sweatpants that was suspiciously the same size and shape of Nureyev’s hand.

“You need to shut the hell up, you need to shut up  _ now _ , or you’ll wake up Buddy,” Juno whispered, voice cracking on his laughter as he tried to cover Nureyev’s mouth. His hand accidentally slipped into Nureyev’s mouth, which only made him laugh harder. “She will  _ kill us _ if she finds out we’ve wasted the flour,  _ stop _ -” Nureyev responded to that by smacking the clean side of Juno’s butt to make a matching flour handprint on that side. Juno yelped, jumping back and grabbing a whisk from the counter, brandishing it like a weapon to Nureyev’s throat.

“Stop it or I won’t make you any pancakes,” Juno threatened, trying and failing to fight back his grin to seem more intimidating. Nureyev held his hands up in a mock surrender, the movement spreading even more flour across the kitchen floor. 

“I actually requested an omelette-”

“And omelettes are gross, and you can’t fucking cook, so we’re having pancakes.”

“I think there’s plenty of  _ cake _ in this kitchen already,” Nureyev purred, baring his sharp teeth. Juno rolled his eyes and hit his forehead with the whisk, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that Nureyev’s grin slipped for just a moment. 

“You’re a menace. Get me the butter.”

Nureyev went to the fridge to do so, but not before smacking Juno’s butt once more on his way. Asshole. Juno got to work, mixing the dry ingredients together as the pan heated up. When he came back with the butter, the expression on his face reminded Juno of a lost child in a supermarket.

“Do you want me to... put this in the bowl?” he asked, making a motion to put the stick, wrapper and all, into the mix. He sounded so genuinely confused that Juno almost wanted to laugh at how bad he was at this. But Nureyev was more sensitive than he let on, so Juno instead just took the butter from his hands and placed it near the pan that was heating up.

“Remind me to enroll you in a Home Ec class on the next planet we visit,” Juno told him, and cracked an egg into the bowl. 

Nureyev made some disgruntled noise of acknowledgement and watched Juno continue to whisk. When Juno didn’t tell him to do anything else, he snaked his arms around Juno’s waist. It was sweet at first, the way Nureyev pulled his back flush against his chest and just held Juno as he worked. But in true Nureyev fashion, he quickly got bold. He pressed a kiss to the skin exposed by the too-big shirt Juno wore, lips moving from his shoulder to across his collarbone, teasing up his neck, and then settling on the little sensitive spot under Juno’s jaw. His breath was hot enough that it nearly burned, and he found himself squirming a little the more attention Nureyev gave that spot, clearly looking to leave a mark. Juno tried to crack another egg into the bowl, but managed to completely crush both the shell and yolk in his hand.

“You’re distracting me,” he grumbled, but there was no real disdain in his tone, just an exasperated fondness that he’d become used to using around Nureyev. He took a fork and started fishing out bits of eggshell from the batter. 

“My sincerest apologies,” Nureyev said insincerely, and then sank his teeth into Juno’s neck, pulling a shuddering breath out of him. “Should I stop?” His arms grew tighter around his waist, like a predator hugging its prey.

“I- I didn’t say that.” Juno grabbed the carton of... well, it wasn’t milk but it was the closest thing to it, and eyeballed two cups of it into the bowl. He picked up the whisk and started beating the mixture, trying to pretend Nureyev wasn’t nibbling on his earlobe.

“If I’m such a distraction, then maybe I should do this part for you?” Nureyev said into his ear, reaching out to place his hands over Juno’s. Juno was quicker than that, and held the bowl at an arm’s length in front of him, still trying to whisk.

“Nu-uh,” he said. “I bet you could set a fire trying to fill an ice cube tray, I don’t trust you at all.” He couldn’t see Nureyev, but he would bet his goddamn life that there was a shit-eating grin on his face as he pressed Juno against the counter and reached for the whisk and the bowl. 

“I thought our whole relationship was built around trust, Juno. I’m wounded!”

“Yeah, you will be in a second here if you don’t let me mix this batter in peace.” Nureyev chuckled and relented.

“Well, is there any way I can make myself useful, love?” he asked, his tone growing softer, running his hands up and down Juno’s sides, and as much as he liked the way  _ that  _ felt, it was still so fucking early. 

“Hm, can you make a cup of coffee without blowing up the ship?”

“I won’t blow up the ship but I can’t make any promises for the dishwasher.”

“Good enough for me. Do that.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Nureyev peeled himself from Juno’s back, crossing the kitchen towards the dinky little coffeemaker tucked in one of the cupboards. The pan was hot enough at this point, and so Juno started ladling batter onto it, the hushed sizzle of melted butter and cooking batter reminding him of other mornings like this back in Hyperion. 

On those mornings, the sun would stream in between his kitchen blinds just right, and Juno would wake up without any of the usual weights on his shoulders or pains in his joints, and he would decide to treat himself to some pancakes. But those mornings were always so ephemeral and fragile, shattered so easily by sirens or screaming outside, or a comms call from a client, or just by being hit with the existential dread that comes with living on Mars. But this was different, this was better. He wasn’t on Mars, for starts, and he was with Peter Nureyev, the man who was currently spilling coffee grounds all over the place while trying and failing to put them in the filter. He loved him so much. 

It hurt how much Juno loved Nureyev. The feeling of it overwhelmed him so much sometimes to the point where he’d feel like he’d combust if he didn’t scream from the rooftops about how much he adored this man, atrocious cooking abilities and all. But he didn’t want to wake up Buddy, so instead he just said, “How do you feel about blueberry pancakes?”

Nureyev finally managed to get at least some of the coffee into the filter, doing his best to look like he knew what he was doing now that he was aware Juno was watching. “Can’t say I’ve had them before.”

“Really? Never? Are you serious?”  
  
“Deadly, I’m afraid. Am I missing out?”

“Not really, but that’s still a little wild. There should be some blueberries in the fridge, grab them for me, will you?” 

“I am but your loyal servant.” Nureyev grabbed the half empty box of dehydrated blueberries from the fridge and handed them over to Juno, who sprinkled them across the pancakes before flipping them over. They were just a little burnt on one side, but that was okay. He’d just eat those himself and give the good ones to Nureyev. 

Juno ordered Nureyev around a little bit more to grab plates, silverware, to make his coffee the way he liked it (with two sugars and a half inch of milk), rather enjoying the way he followed his directions and did what he was told. An unusual trait for Nuryev.

Until Juno asked him to grab the maple syrup. Nureyev’s nose wrinkled as though he’d stepped in dog shit while wearing one of his more expensive pairs of shoes. 

“What? What’s wrong with syrup? It’s essential for pancakes,” Juno said, pausing from where he was loading a plate with food. 

“Yes, but syrup is so...” Nureyev gestured vaguely in the air. “It’s far too sweet for me, too runny. It’s like eating liquid sugar.”

“I mean, yeah, that is essentially what syrup is-”

“Besides, honey is much better on pancakes.”

“ _ Honey?!” _

“Yes, dear?”

Juno scoffed. “You’re kidding me. Honey is basically the same thing as syrup, it’s also liquid sugar, you realize that, right? You realize that, out of all of the crimes that you’ve committed, this one is probably the most heinous?” 

“It’s better for you, and proven to-”

“Sure, but syrup is  _ tradition, _ Nureyev, you can’t just-”

“Tradition can go jump out of the airlock-”

“Nureyev. Syrup.”

With a huff, he retrieved the syrup.

“Thank you, baby.”

“I can’t believe this. First, you deny me my omelettes, then my honey-”

“Uh-huh.” Juno cut off Nureyev’s complaints by grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. The kiss he gave him was rather effective in shutting him up. Nureyev almost instantly melted into it, foregoing everything else in favor of placing his hands on Juno’s waist. Juno wrapped his arms around Nureyev’s neck, and let himself hold and be held. 

There was no rush to the kiss, no end goal they were racing towards. The world simply stopped around them, and Juno suddenly couldn’t give a damn about the pancakes that he had spent all morning making, or the coffee that was growing colder by the second. All that mattered was that he could be close to the man he loved, the man he almost lost for good, the man he was lucky enough to get back. He wanted to cherish this moment with him like he cherished every other stolen second with Peter Nureyev. They moved lazily and languidly against each other, hands slipping underneath clothing. The touching was innocent, just exploring, mapping out expanses of skin as if they weren’t already overly familiar with each other’s scars and moles and imperfections. 

Nureyev pushed forward, just ever so slightly, and Juno went, trusting him. Always trusting him. He was pinned against the countertop now, their bodies so close it hurt, but Juno just wrapped himself tighter around Nureyev, urging him closer still. 

“You’re so pretty,” Nureyev whispered into Juno’s lips, as though it was a secret. Juno smiled as though it wasn’t the millionth time he’d heard Nureyev say it.

“Nure-” Whatever the hell Juno was about to say was cut off by Nureyev grabbing Juno by his thighs, and hoisting him up onto the counter. Juno cried out in surprise like a kicked puppy, clutching him desperately to avoid falling. Once he was settled, he glared at Nureyev who was now standing between his legs, looking way too satisfied with himself. Before Juno could call him an idiot or tell him that he almost broke his ass, Nureyev was kissing him again. He was still slow and luxurious with it, like he could spend hours with his tongue inside Juno’s mouth, but there was a newfound heat behind it, one that made Juno whine a little and hook an ankle around one of Nureyev’s legs. 

“How much time do you think we have?” Juno asked against Nureyev’s lips, prompting a grin to spread across his face. 

“Not much, but enough,” he breathed, slipping a hand under Juno’s shirt and pulling him in for another kiss. He bit his lip and Juno whined, grabbing Nureyev by the belt on his robe, and-

“Ah, goddammit, get a room, won’t you?”

Nureyev jumped away from Juno like he’d been shocked with a cattle prod, causing Juno to lose his balance and fall off of the countertop with a heavy  _ thud _ . They turned to see Vespa standing in the entrance of the kitchen, looking like a disgruntled cat. She glared holes through the two of them as they struggled to straighten their clothes out and look less like they had been caught making out like teenagers.

“Did you make any extra coffee?” she asked, moving right past them and stepping over where Juno was curled into a ball of shame on the floor.

“Yes, there should be some still in the coffeemaker,” Nureyev answers, arranging himself in what he probably assumes is a casual position by the stove. Vespa doesn’t look at him or acknowledge that she heard him, simply pouring two cups of coffee. In one mug, she added a ridiculous amount of sugar, and a ridiculous amount of milk in the other. She turned to walk right back out of the room, but she paused and surveyed the room. Her eyebrows went right into her green hair and Juno realized with dawning horror that they’d never cleaned up the mess from their flour fight earlier. Flour covered the floors and there were patches of it all over the cupboard doors. The whole kitchen looked like a winter wonderland gone wrong. Vespa sighed, and Juno suspected that if she weren’t holding two cups of coffee, she’d be pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off the headache that often came to her when she had to deal with the two of them.

“I won’t tell Buddy if you can clean this up before she gets up,” she grumbled. “You better do it quickly or she’ll have your head for wasting all of this flour.” Before either of them can respond, she’s gone as quickly as she came.

Juno and Nureyev looked at each other; Nureyev splayed awkwardly across the stove, arranged like he was posing for the world’s worst painting. Juno on the floor, arms over his head like he was getting ready for a bomb to drop. Nureyev was the first one to laugh. It bubbled out of him as he tried to hide his smile behind one hand, the other one reaching down to help Juno up. As soon as he grabs his hand, Juno starts laughing too. He can’t help it, it’s infectious. He hugged him, hid his giggles in the crook of Nureyev’s neck, knowing that he would keep them and treasure them. 

“Okay, how about we eat before anyone else wakes up?” he muttered, one arm still slung around Nureyev, the other reaching up to brush his hair out of his eyes. His fingers lingered on his cheek, and Nureyev leaned into his touch, never once taking his eyes off of Juno. Nureyev stared at Juno like he was the only star in a sky full of clouds. Usually that made him turn red and feel exposed, bare, and he wanted nothing more than to hide away. But right here, right now, Juno is looking back at him with the same starstruck gaze, and he can’t find it within himself to be embarrassed. 

**Author's Note:**

> title is from nobody by hozier lol
> 
> leave a comment or ill eat a coat hanger


End file.
